Russia has an exponentially growing epidemic of HIV/AIDS. As in Africa, the diagnosis leaves one a social outcast. Women are denied medical attention if they are HIV positive when Doctors simply reject them.
Now there is a whole generation growing up the mirrors the orphanages of Romania that we have heard so much about. Children who remain in one room most of their lives and some never even experience the outdoors. They are the rejected and abandoned children of HIV/AIDS mothers that Russia still cannot embrace or offer affection to. The following link from the BBC News on Russia's abandoned children is heartbreaking.
Fear makes is so difficult for us to love.